Meet O2’s latest smartphone: Designed by you

Meet the Alcatel OT-990 Android smartphone. It’s an O2 exclusive with a twist: the design was shaped by O2 Facebook fans. Read on to find out all about it, and discover the story of how it came together.

It’s a full touch phone
The Alcatel OT-990 is a touchscreen smartphone that doesn’t skimp on the technology. The 3.5-inch, sharp 480×320 display uses the same capacitive touchscreen kit for recognising inputs as all the latest top of the line models, so is responsive and easy to type on, or zoom in and out of photos or web pages with a pinch.

You picked the cover
Earlier this year, O2 announced it was bringing the Alcatel OT-990 to the UK, and reached out to Facebook followers to help design it. Eight different designs for the back cover were uploaded to the social networking site, and the one with the most Likes would be included.

Out of the box, you get get two options: the standard black shell, or the rather spiffy alternative with paint blobs all over it. It’s a neat personal touch, as voted for by you.

Apps aplenty
The Alcatel OT-990 runs one of the latest versions of Android, 2.2 “Froyo”, so almost every app and game on the Android Market (and there are hundreds of thousands) will run just fine. Not only that, but you get no fewer than 20 essential apps preloaded, and an upgrade to Android 2.3 is coming too.

It’s a bargain
At just £99.99 on Pay & Go, the Alcatel OT-990 is a complete steal. Since it runs Android, it’s all sorts of things for less than one hundred quid. It’s a satnav, courtesy of Google Maps; it’s a music streamer courtesy of Spotify; it’s even a way to watch TV on the go through a variety of apps and websites.

You’ve also got an array of options to choose from at that price: with Text and Web you get 300 text messages and 500MB of data per month when you top up £10, or even free minutes to another country of your choice. Check out the O2 Shop page for all your options.

It’s exclusive to O2
The Alcatel OT-990, and its rather charming custom back cover, are exclusive to O2: you can’t get them anywhere else.